Barry Trotter (Book 1)
The Hogwash School for Wizards was the most famous school in the wizarding world, and Barry Trotter was its most famous student. His mere presence made sure that every year twenty candidates applied for every open spot, no matter how rapacious Hogwash's tuition became. As a result, Barry and the school had come to an unspoken agreement: regardless of his grades, Barry could remain at Hogwash for as long as he wished. He had just begun his eleventh year...Freshman
Sleepy with boredom and gassy from lunch, Hart Fox sat in the hard plastic chair outside his dean's office. A kid walked in the door, pink detention slip in hand, bobbing his head a little so that the purple spikes of his mohawk didn't get bent on the transom. He slumped down next to Hart. Hart nodded--he remembered tis joker from sophomore American History, constantly arguing in favor of anarcho-syndicalism. Was his name Henry?...Sophomore
Arcing lazily through the air, the Frisbee smacked against the window. “Ooo-oo!” a chiseled and shirtless boy teased as it wobbleplummeted to the ground. “Sarah's in troub-le!”The beauty-boy was righter than he knew: Of all the windows on campus to hit, this one was the worst. It belonged to Stutts’ Professor of Clandestine Affairs, Glenbard North, who had destroyed more students than there were blades of grass on the freshly resodded Old Quad below...Coming Soon!
All you really gotta know is, I'm writing new things constantly and the more I write, the better my books get. So if you've read my earlier work--and millions of you have--we should keep in touch. This fall, at least one and maybe two new books will be available: a Dickens parody AND a comic mystery loosely based on The Beatles. Drop me an email at mikesnewbooks[at]gmail[dot]com, and I'll be sure to let you know release dates, special deals, etc.Thursday, July 12, 2007
Newsbreaks for Thursday
Audio version is here.
The President spoke to the press today, and it was vintage Bush. All the elements were there:
[ __ bogus sincerity]
[ __ defiant condescension]
[ __ refusal to acknowledge reality]
[ __ fake-folksy self-congratulation]
He started off by mentioning the death of Lady Bird Johnson.
[ x bogus sincerity]
He told people angry over his pardon of “Scooter” Libby that “it was time to move on.”
[ x defiant condescension]
He called any future withdrawal from Iraq “a disaster.”
[ x refusal to acknowledge reality]
And he finished by saying, “if you ever come down and visit the old, tired me down there in Crawford, I will be able to say I looked in the mirror and made decisions based upon principle, not based upon politics.”
[ x fake-folksy self-congratulation]
During the speech, Bush told the press that we’ve entered a new stage in Iraq, something called “Phase IV.” According to Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, this is “Depression.”
But he’s not depressed—that’s our job. He’s defiant. He acts like Iraq is something he inherited from those idiots in the first Bush Administration. Our President is definitely the kind of guy who gets mad at YOU when he loses his keys.
Privately, a lot of people in Washington are saying that Mr. Bush is drinking again. My question is, “How could you tell?”
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Timing screwy on the videos?
I noticed today that if you start playing a video before it is totally uploaded to your machine, there can be weird lags in the video that totally screw up the jokes.
Anybody else have this problem? Punchlines and images not synching up? Makes the whole thing kinda sucky, to be honest.
My only suggestion is to let it load fully before playing. Any video dudes have thoughts?
Anybody else have this problem? Punchlines and images not synching up? Makes the whole thing kinda sucky, to be honest.
My only suggestion is to let it load fully before playing. Any video dudes have thoughts?
Newsbreaks for Wednesday
Audio version is here.
People have asked, “Why aren’t Newsbreaks more popular?” Up ‘til now my answer has been, people are obviously watching them in large groups in front of their computers. So if YouTube says “4 views,” the real viewership is somewhere around 50,000 people.
But now science has given me a whole new excuse. Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have found that people’s understanding of jokes decreases as they get older. And as we know, most people who use the Internet are well over 65.
Participants in the study were given several panels of a cartoon strip, then asked to pick the funniest ending. Younger adults did 14% better than older ones, and both groups totally destroyed the woman who draws “Cathy.”
“We’ve solved a pair of the world’s great mysteries,” one researcher said. “Why strips like ‘B.C.’ and ‘Beetle Bailey’ have sucked for decades…and why newspaper editors keep running them.”
So what appeared to be bad taste is actually degenerating brains.
The scientists tested two groups: adults over 65, and a bunch of students from the University. Their recommendation is simple: “Old people should smoke more pot. That makes EVERYTHING funny.”
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